Richard Parsakian Benefit
CP tends to shy from writing about straight-up fundraisers, especially pricey ones. But we’ll make a deserved exception for the 6 p.m. Mon., Oct. 12, event at The Andy Warhol Museum. It’s a fundraiser to help out Richard Parsakian, the longtime owner of Eons vintage-clothing boutique and a stalwart member of the local arts community.…
Dan Onorato’s Big Day
It wasn’t supposed to go down like this for Dan Onorato. Today marked the official announcement of something everyone has known for years: Dan Onorato is running for governor. (“[W]hat you may not know is that everything I have done over the last 20 years has helped prepare me for today,” said Onorato in a…
Rural Alberta Advantage at Garfield Artworks, tonight!
A heads-up since we didn’t get this one in last week’s Short List or anything: if your tastes steer clear of Diamanda Galas and/or Cirque du Soleil, but you still want to get out and see something decent, you might head over to Garfield Artworks, where The Rural Alberta Advantage plays. Born of, appropriately, rural…
Students Recount Battle of Oakland at Pitt Rally (with audio)
About 200 people gathered outside the University of Pittsburgh’s student union last night, speaking out in opposition of police tactics used in Oakland during the G-20 summit. A promised speaker — Ryan Geibl, who allegedly spent several hours in the ICU after exposure to gas canisters — did not appear. (Friends cited last-minute cold feet.)…
A final note on today’s Pitt rally …
Among the speakers who will be at a free-speech rally at Schenley Plaza tonight is one Ryan Geibl. Geibl allegedly spent 19 hours in the ICU because of being gassed by police, according to a release just issued. According to prior conversations I’ve had with organizers of this event, Geibl will narrate how he was…
The Abridged Bob Casey (No Need to Thank Me)
No offense to Pennsylvania’s junior Senator, but let’s face it: not the most energizing speaker. And if you support healthcare reform, you could use the energy. A vote earlier this week by the Senate’s Finance Committee may well be the death-knell for hopes that a reform bill would contain a “strong public option” — a…
Short List: Week of October 1 – 8
Ready to reclaim Downtown from the G-20’s steel fences, plywood windows and limousine dignitaries? So is the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. The first Gallery Crawl since January also has more new wrinkles than usual. And it’s not just the new shows at familiar venues — Wood Street Galleries, for instance, opening Julien Marie: Matter and Memory,…
More Postcards From the Edge
Moments that didn’t make headlines during the G-20 summit
Groupthink
A lot of Pittsburghers bought into G-20 hype and hysteria. How much of it came true?
What the G-20 Didn’t Get Done
Joseph Stiglitz isn’t your typical Nobel Prize-winning economist. In books like Globalization and Its Discontents, he’s expressed misgivings about the global economy — misgivings that predicted much of the global downturn. And when he came to Pittsburgh for the G-20, instead of meeting with foreign dignitaries, he gave a speech at the Hill District’s Monumental…
Oakland protests: in their own words
OK, so I’m a litle late with this, but in case you want to hear it for yourself — without the filter of the damned corporate media — here is Deputy Police Chief Paul Donaldson describing police tactics used in Oakland during the G20 during a press conference on Monday. As you’ll hear, Donaldson sounds…
Ruled Out
The protesters who got what they wanted were those who didn’t follow the rules
On the Outside
Summit does little for climate concerns
Mounting Tensions
For some Pittsburghers, it was a rude awakening to see film footage of police battling activists and students in Oakland during the G-20 summit. But for Dan McCloskey, the wake-up call came a few days earlier: at around 1:30 in the morning on Sept. 21. McCloskey woke up that night to a chorus of slamming…
Whip It
Actress Drew Barrymore takes to the director’s chair — and the track — for this lively coming-of-age comedy set in the rowdy world of ladies’ roller derby. Bliss (Ellen Page) is the disaffected small-town Texas teen, dutifully trudging through the pageants her mom (Marcia Gay Harden) loves. That is, until she secretly joins the Hurl…
Surrogates
In the near-future, folks are living fabulous lives. Thanks to a nifty invention originally designed to help the physically disabled, everybody can just lounge around in jammies hooked up to a machine, while their robotic surrogates live life for them. The surrogates are so universally good-looking that crime has plummeted. (This isn’t fully explained, but…
Fame
After nearly 30 years, I can’t recall what it was I was supposed to “remember, remember …” about Alan Parker’s 1980 musical dramedy chronicling the fictional lives of some kids at New York City High School for Performing Arts. And now, after less than 24 hours, I can hardly remember what I saw in Kevin…
Dead Snow
In Tommy Wirkola’s horror comedy, these undead baddies have taken up residence in the Norwegian mountains. The film follows the genre’s classic set-ups and execution: A group of students from the city hike to a remote cabin to enjoy a weekend boozing and goofing off, only to be systemically picked off by hungry, zombified Nazis…
The Cove
Ric O’Barry trained dolphins for the hit 1960s TV show Flipper. Since then, he’s become a highly visible fighter for dolphin rights, advocating for their release from theme parks and swim-with programs, and working to prevent their needless slaughter. One such site of concern is Taiji, a picturesque fishing village in Japan, the source of…
The Burning Plain
A thirtysomething Oregon woman named Sylvia (Charlize Theron) struggles with the residual damage of a troubled adolescence. And who is that Mexican man stalking her? And why did this film open with a shot of a trailer home engulfed in flames? Guillermo Arriaga wrote and directs this multi-generational melodrama, which uncovers the source of these…
Bright Star
English-lit majors know that this story about the 19th-century Romantic poet isn’t going to end well. But Jane Campion’s account of his youthful love affair with Fanny Brawne is so sublimely seductive that Romantics and romantics alike may well hope it does. The forthright Fanny (Abbie Cornish) comes to know her neighbor, the struggling poet…
Zombieland
In Zombieland, there’s only a handful of uninfected people left. Ruben Fleisher’s comedy tracks four of them as they band together for a road trip. Our guide is “Columbus” (Jesse Eisenberg), a nervous, nerdy college kid who hooks up with “Tallahassee” (Woody Harrelson), a wise-crackin’ good ole boy. They’re later joined by two devious gals,…
Capitalism: A Love Story
In his latest film, Moore sets his sights on the entire economic system, literally asking, “Is capitalism a sin?” The answer to that question comes as no surprise. Neither do Moore’s methods of addressing it. As he has in previous films, he makes plentiful use of 1950s footage, deploying it in a way that is…
Paris 66 Bistro
A charming East Liberty venue brings Parisian-style café culture to Pittsburgh.
Wrist Rocket
A poem by Fred Shaw
Michael Chabon visits with his new book, Manhood for Amateurs.
He explores everything from circumcising his son to his own experience — slightly scandalous — of sex at age 15 with a friend of his mother’s.
After 20 years, Friday Nite Improvs is still getting laughs — and involving audiences.
“Then you can go home and have unprotected sex and have babies, thus more audience members.”
The Music Lesson
Local playwright Tammy Ryan’s 1999 drama still packs a wallop.
Weird Romance
Scott Patrick Calhoun’s swift, but curiously cluttered, direction moves the show briskly, providing a showcase for the fine voices of the company.
Crystal Pite’s dance troupe Kidd Pivot evokes the toll of war.
“It is something you really don’t want to mess it up.”
This Just In: October 1 – 8
Highlights from the local TV news: The Mourning After
ARTica Cooking Demos
“I’m not a chef at all. I’ve always just been really fascinated with cooking shows.”
Police Misstate
Just like pepper spray, the G-20 leaves a bitter aftertaste
Mutually Beneficial
North Side activists say subsidy reform would help them and entire city
Arrested Developments
Why did most of the G-20 arrests occur after the summit ended?
Japandroids’ brush with mortality is just more fuel for the fire
“When I came back in to check on him, he was already being sent to surgery.”
Diamanda Galás combines astounding vocal range, social commentary
“I always enjoy baiting a Greek homophobic journalist with this when they begin to discuss our great innovations.”
A Conversation with Mike Ness of Social Distortion
“The Sex Pistols sounded like I felt inside.”
The Miller Gallery offers intriguing if sometimes vague proposals for a “fantastic future.”
What set the tone are Fuller’s worship of ingenuity, and his faith in the ultimate survivability of humankind
Local band Dawn Canon releases new EP … on USB
Barenaked Ladies, of all people, beat everyone to the punch in 2005, releasing an album with lots of extras, “incredibly low priced at $29.98.”
Savage Love
About a month ago, I got drunk and slept with my friend’s girlfriend. (He’s not my best friend, more of a second-tier friend.) We both swore never to tell anyone and left it at that. Only problem is, we’ve been hanging out a lot lately and sending private messages to each other multiple times a…
Statewide poll has bad news for Onorato
As our friends at the Post-Gazette have already noted, yesterday a Quinnipiac poll came out with some bad news for Dan Onorato’s gubernatorial ambitions: [Republican] Attorney General [Tom] Corbett is the one candidate for Governor relatively well-known to Pennsylvanians. A total of 43 percent of voters — including 60 percent of Republicans — view him…
